Markham third-grade class honors Hispanic labor leader’s life, legacy

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Markham Elementary third-graders Addison Begley (right) and Mia Ochoa hold a sign that is part of a Cesar Chavez timeline. Students at Markham are spending two weeks studying the life of the labor leader and civil rights activist who fought for better working conditons for field laborers. Greg Trott -- The Reporter

Markham Elementary third-grade teacher Norma Guerrero talks to her students about what it was like to be a field worker during the days of Cesar Chavez, the civil rights activist who fought for the rights of farm laborers. Greg Trott --The Reporter

Markham Elementary third-grade teacher Norma Guerrero talks to her students about what it was like to be a field worker during the days of Cesar Chavez, the civil rights activist who fought for the rights of farm laborers. Greg Trott -- The Reporter

Imagine working all day in the hot sun, with little food, water and no rest breaks, for 35 cents.

That is what some Hispanic field workers earned in 1965 in America’s West and Southwest, Markham Elementary teacher Norma Guerrero recently explained to her class of 24 students.

But Cesar Chavez, best known as the co-founder of the United Farmworkers of America in the mid-20th century, told the beleaguered workers across the nation that “we can change these working conditions,” said Guerrero, a bilingual teacher for 16 years at the Markham Avenue campus.

She and the mostly 8-year-olds, enrolled in one of the school’s many Spanish Immersion classes, are amid a two-week series of daily one-hour lessons about the iconic Mexican-American labor leader who used nonviolent tactics, strikes and nationwide boycotts to win union recognition and contracts from California grape and lettuce growers in the 1960s. His birthday is today, Cesar Chavez Day, a legal state holiday in California, Colorado and Texas.

As the lesson continued, pairs of students who had created colorful “timeline” posters about Chavez’s life — from his birth in 1927 in Yuma, Ariz., his hardscrabble life in migrant camps with his family, a mid-1930s drought that forced the family to move to California to seek work, the eventual formation of the UFW in the early 1960s, the labor organizing years later, a march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966, strikes and boycotts, his dedication to nonviolent civil disobedience in the 1970s — stood at the front of the class for all to see.

And there was more — and more pairs of students who had created posters — about Chavez’s efforts to ban the practice of pesticide-spraying while farm laborers were in the fields and his eventual death in 1993 in San Luis, Ariz.

Speaking in English for the lesson, Guerrero noted that Chavez popularized the Spanish expression “Si, se puede,” loosely translated as “Yes, it can be done,” which was adopted as the 2008 campaign slogan of President Barack Obama.

Chavez’s message was simple, that the Hispanic field workers — who every day are a key part of the food distribution chain in America — “need to have fair wages,” she said.

“The workers worked 10 to 12 hours,” said Guerrero, the daughter of a migrant farmworker and graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “But these farm owners said insects are taking over. Big airplanes sprayed pesticides over the fields and the workers were getting sick.” So, in 1986, Chavez called for a major UFW strike to stop the pesticide-spraying while workers were in the fields, she said.

Later, as students worked quietly at their desks, Guerrero said her lessons were geared to impart the knowledge that Chavez, who also served in the U.S. Navy, “was an important man.”

“His legacy still continues,” she said, noting that the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor. Cities today have named schools, parks and buildings in his honor, too. Statues and monuments of his likeness have been made as well, she noted.

As she spoke, the students sang a song, “Cesar Chavez,” in Spanish.

The two weeks of lessons adhere to Common Core and have “a multicultural impact,” said Guerrero, who attended Chavez’s funeral after he died on April 23, 1993.

“He was an American hero, just like Dr. (Martin Luther) King,” she said. “He fought for civil rights.”

As part of the Chavez lesson, the students read “Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez” (in English) and “El Camino de Amelia” (in Spanish).

Student Creighton Bernard said the lessons taught him that Chavez was “an important man — he helped farmworkers. The farmworkers weren’t paid very well.”

Sitting nearby, Xochitl (pronounced “SO-chee”) Atayde said she learned that Chavez was a farmworker,” just like the people he tried to help.

“And I didn’t know that he got sprayed (with pesticides),” she added, closing her book. “And I didn’t know he moved from Arizona to California.”

While Chavez’s birthday and the state holiday will be celebrated today, at Markham the labor leader’s life and legacy will he observed, for grades K-3, with a culminating assembly on Thursday, said Guerrero.